Claudio Castagnoli has revealed the bizarre story of how while he was in WWE he saved a fellow Superstar’s job with an uppercut.
Tyler Breeze signed with WWE in late 2010, making his debut in developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling in December at a live event under his real name Matt Clement.
However, it wouldn’t be until a year later the star would begin to really progress up the ladder in the promotion which would later become NXT. The turning point seemingly came in a match against new signee Claudio Castagnoli, who would become known as Cesaro.
In what was the Swiss star’s first televised match he was put in the ring with Breeze for what was described as a ‘get over’ match. As it turned out, WWE hadn’t been all too impressed with Breeze up to that point, but that match and his reaction to taking Castagnoli’s famous uppercut changed all that.
Speaking during an appearance at Starrcast V with Chris Van Vliet for his Insight podcast, Castagnoli described how his uppercut saved Breeze’s job.
“He was in FCW when I just got there, and I wrestled my first match against him ever on FCW TV. It was just a ‘get over’ match as I don’t think they were very high on him at that time, that I didn’t know.
[On the uppercut] He just took it like a madman and just went super high in the sky and I took his head off. But after that match, everybody was like ‘how is he to work with?’ and I was like ‘he’s great.’ They were like ‘he’s really good…’ Then fast-forward three months and he’s FCW Champion or something. I uppercut-ed his head off, but saved his job in the process because they were not high on him before, but afterwards they were, rightfully so, very high on him.
I don’t think I did anything, I think he did everything. He just showed everyone how good he was.”
Tyler Breeze remained with WWE until he was released in June 2021 following another run in NXT.
Elsewhere during his appearance at Starrcast, Claudio Castagnoli discussed why he decided to leave WWE in early 2022.
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